Kent Bush: I heard Dad's voice come out of my mouth

Friday

Aug 2, 2013 at 1:00 PM

Last night I remembered something Dad told me. I didn't just recall it. I said it.

Kent Bush

I don't know what Heaven will be like.

The Bible tells us some about it. A couple people were caught up into Heaven. The Apostle Paul heard a voice from Heaven on the road to Damascus. The Book of Revelation describes Heaven but even those references include the phrase that things "were like" something.

I am pretty sure that cartoon cat and mouse Tom and Jerry have it wrong. I don't think we'll turn into angels who sit on clouds and play the harp all day. I do think I will get to drink all the Diet Coke I want without people constantly warning me about how bad it is for me.

That would certainly be heavenly.

I'm not sure if people who are in Heaven can still see us down here. I don't know if they would bother looking if they could.

When you vacation in Hawaii, do you check the weather forecast for Wichita? I doubt it.

But if they can and if they do, my dad was getting a big laugh last night.

Due to my sons beginning soccer practice and all of the recent rains here, I had to get my mowing done last night. From the minute I walked in the front door after work until the sun finally set, I was behind a mower.

Dad could relate to that. He always worked two jobs. His main job and his own janitorial service that he kept from when he was a young man until his death.

He worked at the same job for 42 years but he always kept the janitorial service because, "you never know when you will need it."

That janitorial service was my first job. We didn't get allowances per se. My brother and I worked with dad on Saturdays and sometimes in the evening after school.

We got paid based on the work we did.

I learned so much about work ethic from that time.

First, I saw my dad work. He never cut any corner. His buildings had to be perfect.

I remember him coming behind me to make sure the trash cans were completely empty and placed back properly. He checked the ash trays to make sure I had wiped them out perfectly. You couldn't have people putting their cigarettes out in a dirty ash tray.

Last night I remembered something he told me. I didn't just recall it. I said it. Then I laughed because I heard my dad's voice come out of my mouth.

As I finished mowing the back yard, I saw our trash cans. My nine-year old takes out the trash at the house. He had bundled it all up in grocery store bags and taken it out. The trash cans had been placed upside down so that they wouldn't collect rain.

Instead of turning the trash cans over, my son just placed his bags on the bottoms of the trash cans.

That is a ticking time bomb.

How many neighborhood dogs and cats would like a shot at those bags?

So I called Blake outside and had him go back to the alley and turn the trash cans over and put the trash where it is supposed to go.

"Son, if you do a job halfway, you haven't done it at all," I told him.

I heard that so many times growing up.

I don't know if dad heard me say that last night. But if he did, I can only imagine the big grin on his face knowing that I actually heard him all those times and that my boys are learning the same lessons now.

Kent Bush is the publisher of the Augusta Gazette, the El Dorado Times, and the Andover American newspapers. He can be contacted at: kbush@augustagazette.com